The real tax cost of benefits in kind

There is a sting in the tail for companies that provide their directors or employees with taxable benefits as part of their remuneration package.

Obviously, the directors or employees that receive the benefits will pay additional income tax if the benefits provided are chargeable to tax: for example, the use of a company car.

The cost of the benefits is generally a deduction for the employer, and this would reduce the employer’s corporation tax bill, but it also triggers an additional, employers’ Class 1A National Insurance liability.

The amount payable is 13.8% of total taxable benefits provided.

Although this extra National Insurance payment is itself a deductible item for corporation tax purposes, this is still a net loss of cashflow for the company and needs to be considered when planning remuneration packages for directors and employees.

As we have posted previously on this site, one way that a company can trim this additional NIC charge is to negotiate a repayment of a taxable benefit from affected employees.

Why consider this?

Why would an employee consider repaying all or part of the cash equivalent of their benefit in kind? Doesn’t this diminish the value of their perks?

Certainly, this is not a strategy that you would use for all benefits provided, but there are some where there are real win-win outcomes for the employer and the employee.

A prime example is fuel provided to employees or directors for the private use of their company car. You would need to crunch the numbers, but it may well pay the employee to pay back the cash cost of private petrol provided – thus avoiding the car fuel benefit charge and reducing their income tax payments by more than the refund of fuel costs – and at a stroke, reducing the employer’s Class 1A NIC charges.

6 July 2019 deadline for 2018-19

The deadline for employees to make refunds of these types of cost to employers is before 6 April 2019 for the tax year 2018-19.

If you are unsure if this would work for your company, please call, we can help you calculate if there would be an overall benefit from adopting this idea.